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I am no Joan Didion, but lately I have been thinking about her 1961 essay on self-respect. I came across it while watching the recent documentary of her life: The Center Will Not Hold, shortly after arriving in Perth and finding myself awake in the early hours of the morning. I was feeling shit from screwing up an interview for a permanent job two days before I left London. I knew I wasn’t doing as well as I should have halfway through the ordeal – I had entered that purely terrifying state of anxiety wherein nothing you say makes any sense and the more you talk, the more you exit your body to look upon yourself with a sense of horror. Typically, as soon as I left the room I pored over all my omissions and realised what answers they had expected me to provide. What made things worse was that the job was at a lower banding than I had been working at for the last 4 years – I had decided to take a cut in my pay and my status because I enjoyed the job and the NHS Trust so much (I had been working in the role as a temporary staff member for a few months preceding the application). My fears were confirmed a couple of days later when I was told I hadn’t been successful at securing the position.

That’s it, I thought. Your life went off track in 2016 and it’s never coming back. You’d better look for another career because you clearly suck at this one.You think you’ve made all this personal progress over the last year but you haven’t gone anywhere. You can’t even get a job below the level that you’re apparently supposed to be. You should never have even been at that level. You don’t care enough. You’re lazy. You need to stop this now. You haven’t been suffering from Imposter Syndrome. You’re a genuine fraud.

The thought of going back to the office when I returned from Australia and having to face all the people who expected me to get the position crippled me. I sent an email to my boss apologising for letting her down. Which is pretty embarrassing. The paralysis of shame was, in a way, comforting because it felt so familiar.

And then… something changed. I think I had a moment where I looked in the mirror and thought Well, so fucking what. What is this compared to the other shit you’ve dealt with? Maybe I’m not supposed to be a Speech and Language Therapist anymore. It’s not because I’m not smart or lack the aptitude. Maybe I’m just not as interested anymore. It’s been 12 years, that would be completely understandable. Or maybe I was so consumed by anxiety in the interview because I was daring to go for a job I would actually really, really enjoy. Perhaps I am so used to applying for higher banded jobs that I wasn’t sure how to pitch myself and forgot to mention the basic things that I do on a day to day basis. Maybe it was this, maybe it was that. The point is, it can’t be anything too terrible, because I’m not terrible. It’s OK, I fucked up on the day and I forgive myself; the journey continues. It felt so good to speak to myself kindly. I had a cry to my Mum, but then I said the words I needed to hear to myself instead of turning to a partner, or over-burdening my friends. That might not sound like a big deal to most people, but it was to me.

As Joan Didion said, it is a myth that having self-respect – an intrinsic knowledge of one’s own self-worth – will keep one “out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general.” It won’t. But it will determine whether you have the resilience and responsibility to look at these situations square in the face and make, in essence, a measured appraisal of your part. Self-respect is having a strong self-image rather than desperately trying to live out the roles and expectations that other people have assigned to you. Joan thought of it as a discipline that can be trained, and though I am still a fair way off presenting myself to certain people as I truly am (a flawed, imperfect human being with my own needs), I am a hell of a lot closer than I was a year ago, when my opinions of myself were based solely on how others saw me and the first thing I said to my therapist was “I have no idea who I am.” I have walked that “devastatingly well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself” and I have learnt that unlike in my youth, doors will not magically open for me without hard work, I am no more lucky in love than anyone else, and sometimes I will fuck up things that mean a lot to me. I will lose things. People will leave. I will let others cross my boundaries and I will give them too much. I may not even be a very good person sometimes. But there is now an acceptance of myself running through my very core that not many external situations could shake. I fucking respect myself.

Oh yeah and a few weeks later, my work emailed me to say they’d had a change of circumstance and offered me the job. Pffffft.

A therapist I saw in London at some point last year ventured that I may have spent a lot of my life running away from The Emptiness – avoiding the repetitive drudgery of everyday existence by escaping in different ways – usually into relationships. There are other ways of escaping too, travel and constantly moving being the most benign of options!

Get off the rollercoaster of drama she said, and learn to live outside the realm of constant crisis, conflict, change and hedonism. What you will be faced with is yourself, and this is what you’re escaping from. Do some deep work, go home and explore your family dynamics, face your past and then face The Emptiness. If you ever want a family, she added, you will have to be comfortable with a quiet and unrelenting repetition.

Obviously that sounded terrifying and boring in equal parts.

Anyway, I’m in the bit now where I’m facing The Emptiness. When I first got back to London I was on a total high – fuelled by an excitement at seeing my friends, a cheerful panic induced by needing to find a job and a place to live, and the return of my libido after a long grief induced absence. And, I suppose, a fear that if I stopped and spent a night in, I would be met with the crushing realisation that I am on my own here. It’s been a bit of a process – all of the old escapism instincts kicked in over the first couple of months I was back. I had a bit of a moment where I realised that they were causing more anxiety than they were alleviating – particularly in regards to being in weird ambiguous potentially romantic situations that were more annoying than they were rewarding. It took a while to realise it doesn’t have to be that way. So I chose to spend some nights in, cook myself some healthy food, do some exercise and focus on myself. Now when I engage in hedonistic behaviours, I feel I’m mostly able to do it for the right (fun) reasons rather than running away from something. The choices I make about the people I will let into my life and to what extent are clear, solid and I make no apology for them. The red hot, molten anger that had been flowing through me this year has cooled and solidified into the boundaries I should have always had. The amount of fucks I give about a range of things and how much of my behaviour is driven by shame or ego are in proportion, and overall I just feel really calm, grown up and for the first time in a long time, generally happy. Happy being single! Weird and alien but such a relief. I feel desirable because I think I am desirable, not because anyone else does or does not. The sexual experiences I have are clearly defined, and only good communicators who are committed to mutual, respectful enjoyment are allowed. I’m being super picky and focusing on quality over quantity.

The thing about The Emptiness, now that I’ve stopped railing against it, is that it’s actually quite a lovely peaceful place. Sometimes I get a bit lonely (a night spent in through a lack of opportunity feels different to a self-enforced night in) and sometimes in the quiet, the lid is lifted on painful things that I had to lock away for a while. A few nights ago, out of nowhere, I had a dream that my dog had come back to life, and he had to be put down again. I woke up crying and I’ve found that after going through a period where I could talk about him with some bravado, I’m now in a place where I can’t look at pictures of him, or talk about him without crying. I think it’s important to be able to open that box of hurt that I had put away and ignored for a while and tackle it in manageable portions; on Saturday night my friend was saying it’s important to be able to have feelings in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you. If I have a cry every now and then about Dudley, or about anything else, it’s OK and I’m OK.

One good thing that’s come out of having more time to myself is the amount I’ve actually been able to focus on my own interests. Through living in West Hampstead again I’ve been able to reconnect with the group I used to get together and make art with every week – I hadn’t been for 3 – 4 years and I was welcomed back with open arms. I feel like I’m learning new things and challenging myself and I love it. Emptiness, you’re alright x

My first ever watercolour life portrait

A week later. Painting from life = wild

Trying to get to grips with ink and brush, inspired by Brett Whiteley nudes

I’ve moved back to London and I still haven’t decided whether to go back to Perth for good at the end of the year, or just for a couple of months to celebrate my brother’s wedding. I kind of thought that being back in Perth would help me decide once and for all, and I thought it had, but when I got back to London I’ve become all confused again. The problem is that both options are good! I’ve got the ridiculous privilege of being able to live for as long as I like in two first world countries, and of course it’s the case that when I’m in Perth I feel like I want to stay in Perth, and when I’m in London I feel like I want to stay in London. I watched a TED Talk once about making decisions and upshot of it was that when two options are both objectively, quantifiably good, then the decision has to be made in terms of how each one relates to your identity. Which opens up a whole other can of beans! So, I’ve decided to live as though I might be leaving London for good sometime before November. And put off the decision until…sometime, later…

Obviously when you live in a place for going on 6 years, you start to take it for granted. You go to and from work, and if you’re me, you accept invitations to things other people have organised often enough that you’re busy and drunk enough to stave off any alarming (but necessary) introspection. You have so many proactive friends, that you change over time, from someone who used to actively pursue experiences that made you happy, to a passive participant in other people’s plans.

No more! I am the protagonist in my own life! she internally screamed as she bought a $30 notebook with BUCKET LIST embossed in gold on the front cover. If not now, when? resonated the tag line within her bones, bones whose age fell perfectly within kikki.K’s target demographic.

On April 15th 2017 I gave a speech at my brother from another mother’s wedding at Tower Bridge. By popular demand, and because love is lovely, here it is:

“For those of you who don’t know me, I am Jill and I have been Matt Spicer’s friend since we were born only a month apart. We grew up in Armadale, Western Australia, and we both had the undercuts to prove it! I am absolutely honoured to be able to speak to you today about the kind of man Matt Spicer is, and to describe the incredible bond he has with his husband Matthew Coltrona.

I feel it is a cosmic blessing that Matt and I have always just ‘got’ each other. When I think back to our childhoods, I see a confident boy with sandy blonde hair, freckles, a wide smile and blue, mischievous eyes. I also see a girl with uncontrollable hair, a mouth that was always quick to laugh when she was with her best friend, as well as eyes that were sometimes filled with uncertainty.

Where I was shy, Matt was outgoing. Where I was hesitant to take risks, Matt was fearless. Where I was clumsy and couldn’t run, swim or catch a ball, Matt was zipping around barefoot in the bush, doing it all. We spent days in the pool playing mermaids, me in the shallow end and Matthew in the deep. We made Jane Fonda workout home videos (sadly lost in the mists of time). We had sleepovers when we would giggle and whisper all night long. We tormented our little brothers and Matt’s older sister, and they tormented us back. Our families spent every Christmas together and we would laugh at our parents dancing to Neil Diamond and walking straight through fly-screen doors. And always, always, when we knew it was time for one of us to leave, we would run as far away from the grown-ups as we could and hide, treasuring our time together up to the last second.

Matt’s gentle, accepting and patient nature helped me come out of my shell. He built me up, and my trust in him was, and still is, unshakeable. He was the first person with whom I ever cried with laughter, and is still one of the few people who can reduce me to helpless giggles with only a sideward glance, a pregnant pause or a drawn out syllable. Let’s face it, if someone can stay friends with you when you look like this, they’re a keeper.

Ew.

All of this has continued as we’ve grown older. Matt has always been there – reliable, stoic and practical as a lighthouse in stormy seas. I remember panicking in Matt’s car about moving out of home. As I wailed “But I don’t even know how to make SPAGHETTI!”, he calmly gave me a step-by-step explanation of how to boil pasta and make a bolognese sauce. No wonder his cooking is so good nowadays!

Don’t get me wrong, I have had some opportunities to repay the favour. I recall Matt’s 21st birthday dinner, when it became apparent he had downed one too many red wines. He disappeared off to the bathroom, with Megan and I following around 10 minutes later. Matt had generously repainted the restaurant’s hallway, and had taken a little nap in the stalls. We got him back on his feet, and as we were apologising and paying the bill, Matt staggered over and still tried to get the restaurant to accept his Entertainment Card voucher.

You can understand then, that when this dashing, handsome Italian man came along and made it beyond the impossible 4-month mark with my Matt in July 2005, I was slightly concerned that Matt Spicer, and our friendship, would not stay the same.

As it turns out, I was right. Neither of those things were ever the same. They have evolved, expanded, and experienced even more joy and boundless possibilities because of this wonderful person. Matthew Coltrona’s articulate wit combines with an intelligence matched only by his unquestionable moral fibre. He is something of a Renaissance man, enjoying a high-flying career whilst casually refurbishing pianos, writing and illustrating children’s books, churning out Michelin Star-quality meals, and all while laughing, feeling feelings and being a dream partner to my dearest friend.

I look towards their relationship as a model of what love should be. Honest, respectful, patient, accepting and supporting of each other’s endeavours, I have never heard them say a cruel word against the other, nor have I seen them turn away when there was an opportunity to turn towards. They have built countless memories and made innumerable commitments to each other. Their shared homes, their holidays, their ‘special’ dog Napoleon and their adventure to make a new life in London were all ways of saying “I love you.” The inclusion of their friends and family in many of these escapades were ways of saying “we love you.” Their strengths complement each other perfectly and I truly could not have imagined a better person for my dearest friend to spend his life with. I believe they have found their soulmate and I cannot imagine them apart.

What was my lighthouse has become a bridge. A bridge with two equal towers forged of concrete, steel and granite. Those towers are joined together with love, communication, integrity, lightheartedness and acceptance. The connection between them is strong enough to open sometimes and let the waters flow by, carrying away any resentments. Each tower is supported to stand upright from either side with the steady ties of their backgrounds, their families, the things that make them unique and the new, important and always delightful friendships they make along the way.

The bridge on which we celebrate tonight took 8 years to build and has stood for 122 years. As Matt and Matt enter their 12th year of building their future together, I have no doubt their bridge will stand steadfast for the rest of their lives, and will leave a lasting impression on all who behold it. I am utterly, utterly proud to be able to support that bridge, and I hope we are all able to admire its beauty as we do Tower Bridge’s beauty tonight.”

Somehow it is March 10th and I only have two and a half weeks left in Perth before I fly to Cambodia for a fortnight, then back to London for a friend’s wedding. I feel like I’ve been here for no time at all. The first month involved me being in an intense state of shock, burnout, grief and exhaustion. However, it also a time of happiness catching up with family and other overseas-based Perthites while we had the chance. It was a time of wildly fluctuating emotions – having a really nice day-trip to Rottnest Island for example, despite hiding the fact I was silently crying on some of our bike rides. Having a ball celebrating my Dad’s birthday dinner before being hit with a wave of low mood – kind of a low pressure system for the heart, and retreating to my room in an attempt not to ruin everyone else’s night.

The smartest thing I did during that time was go and see a GP, who asked me to give him a rundown of what happened. I delivered a matter-of-fact summary of the end of 2016 re: work, money, relationship, dog and living situation (i.e. residing with my whole family in the suburbs with no car and no job). I think the poor guy thought I had finished after the first couple of things, but his eyebrows rose further up his face as I went on. I wrapped things up as quickly as I could, and he slowly leant forwards and typed into his notes ‘situational life crisis’. ‘OMG yas’ I thought, that is exactly right. He went on to explain that as my anxiety, depression and severe stress symptoms (I did that scale thing) were due to external factors, he did not want to put me on any antidepressant medication. I was cool with that. He also said he could write me a mental health care plan which would give me six bulk-billed Psychology sessions. I was definitely cool with that! I was about to stand up and leave when he said “I’m going to write you a medical certificate for Centrelink”. Say what?! He told me that he thought it would be good for my mental health if I had a break from working…but that I needed money for my self esteem and to reduce stress. When I arrived I had sold some employee shares that Woolworths had given me at the age of 19, and that had given me a boost of cash when I first arrived. To see it steadily dwindling away, however, created a tightness in my chest about having to find a job when I badly needed rest. The thought of re-inserting myself into the Perth Speech Pathology scene when I had been out of the loop for 5 years was intimidating and triggered off all kinds of ‘I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy’ kind of thoughts. Although going through the initial process of signing on to the dole was arguably not great for my self esteem, I can see now that it was the best thing he could have done for me and I’m glad I stuck with that plan without giving into the internal monologue of “You’re a total loser”. I started working at the age of 14 and have not stopped since (besides a few months when I was travelling), so decided to (try to) stop judging myself so harshly, let myself get better, and take that sweet sweet Government cash. I knew I had another two months to start catching up with everybody else, so besides doing a few fun things, I kept my head low and just focused on getting better. I spent a lot of time with my Mum during the day as she took some time off work, and I gladly let myself be looked after. I caught up with my friends slowly and one or two at a time to keep things manageable.

At some point in the second month I stopped carrying my dog’s collar with me everywhere I went and moved on to another stage.

I touched down in Perth almost two months ago. To be honest there is not a lot I remember about the 5 months preceding the 31st of December 2016. I have some crystal clear memories – frantically handing over my caseload to a fresh new Speech and Language Therapist, trying not to cry; power walking down the road in Seven Sisters to pick up some sleeping pills for my flight; staring up at the ceiling from the floor of my friend’s apartment on Christmas Eve; a vet tapping my dog’s eyeball to check if he is dead. The rest of it is hazy – nights wrapped up watching Now TV in my new room, staying on ‘my’ side despite there no longer being a claim on the other side of the bed. My friends’ loving and concerned faces on the opposite sides of pub tables…more nights spent on their couches or in their spare rooms, politely asking for permission to do simple things like boil the kettle or charge my phone, wishes that are of course granted but nonetheless would have warranted no such enquiry in my own nonexistent home. There are other memories too – the faces of the clients I took on in those months, the parents I met working as a nanny, the date I went on and the nice way I turned him down. The moments I could have been nasty but instead handed roses to a man while he lit me on fire. The warm faces of the family I lived with between my separation and my departure from London, making a gingerbread house with their 3 year old and watching their 1 year old son start to walk. Lying on their couch at midnight screaming into an empty house after being turned away from the couch I had previously owned; walking aimlessly around Brixton for I don’t know how many hours wearing a giant faux fur coat, holding a cardboard box with some soap and half a bottle of red wine and my dead dog’s collar and a ball he chewed before he died, crying and wishing that somebody, anybody would see me and ask me what’s wrong. Wondering why the crazy people aren’t trying to talk to me and realising that tonight, I am the crazy person, the invisible one, the one you shouldn’t make eye contact with. Someone comes up to look inside my box and walks away. It’s finally happened – I’m not going to be OK. Calling my parents at 4.50am and not forming words, crying, wailing like I have never wailed before, so much that my Mum who never cries starts crying. I take a strong sleeping pill on my flight and chase it down with a whiskey, waking up with an alarming pain in my leg and on the other side of the world.

Now I am standing still. There are no longer three jobs to do across three counties. There are no pets to look after. There is no relationship to tend, no baby to keep trying for. No house savings to add to. There are friends and family who keep me alive. And there is me, slowly coming out of survival mode and wondering where to put all of this adrenalin, these memories and this anger.

Once again I come back to my humble blog after a long absence, like returning home to see a friend. I haven’t had the ‘voice’ for it for a while – for me it was always about being filled with wonder and excitement about the changes I was experiencing in my life, and for a long time things have been static. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but plodding along with a settled in predictability. After going through a transformative time leaving Perth and settling in London 4 years ago (earning buttloads of cash as a locum Speech and Language Therapist and therefore travelling loads), last year I took two part-time jobs with normal salaries and began the same daily grind as most of the other people who live here.

Life is no longer a holiday; short-term hedonism has been replaced with long-term goals and sacrifices in order to land the end result – higher up the ladder, spread across more rooms and up the duff. I may not be able to go out to nice places for dinner as often as I used to, but I have jobs where people actually know who I am and where I have the same ‘rights’ (locums aren’t allowed to access training, work in the holidays or get any leave entitlements), as everyone else. I have cred, I have gravitas. I commit to things and I can wish my colleagues a happy holiday and know I will be there to see them when they get back. I have been off my anxiety and nerve pain medication for 6 months and I am managing it well because I do grown up things like exercise and meditate and do therapy and eat healthily and buy milled flaxseed.

In a way embracing long-term goals has in itself been exciting. Never before in my life have I looked further than, well…. 0 years ahead. Money was for spending on things that you wanted right then. You could just get more if you ran out. I’d never had a boyfriend where marriage and children were more than just abstract, millions-of-years-away things that happened to other people. My disdain for authority and work politics meant that I never wanted to be involved and competitive. Settling down and being earnest was for losers. Swoop in, shoot out the lights and leave. Hurricane Jill.

Now though…what’s changed now? I want children and a big fuck off house and an awesome job that gives me enough money to be able to live like a grown up. I guess this just happens naturally. I’ve lived in London for three and a half years and in the last year I have halved my income and doubled my rent to live just with my boyfriend in a flat in Zone 1 so he can commute up to Bedford and even though we are both professionals we have no money and no space and WHY DID I LEAVE AUSTRALIA WHERE I COULD BE RICH AND HAVE A 5 BEDROOM HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT?! What have I done? I’ve delayed growing up and now suddenly here I am in the middle of what was supposed to be a huge adventure, grown up and in the words of Snap!, as serious as cancer. Is this a good place to be grown up? If it weren’t for my fizzling out ovaries would I be growing up? Why didn’t I save some money to freeze my eggs? Why didn’t I save any money for anything? Where are those anxiety meds again?!

So fine, if I have to be a grown up, then I will plan out our new grown up life. You want long-term plans? I will give you the most comprehensive grown up plan you’ve ever fucking seen. I will get my coil taken out in February, then we will be pregnant by April. I will finish my 3-day a week fixed term contract in June and then in July we will move to Bedford. I will keep my 2 day a week Highly Specialist job in inner-city London and get some locum work in Bedford and because the rent is 50% of the price for 400% more room we will live like a King and Queen and we’ll have enough money saved for a house in no time! Growing up is easy, I will own it like I’ve owned everything else. As soon as I want things, they happen. That’s how it’s always been.

But the thing I’ve learnt about plans is that they don’t go the way you want them to, even (especially?) if you are sticking to them with laser-like focus and an all-encompassing, scary-to-other-people rigidity. You realise that doing locum work again means that you will be the expendable person at work who is far more experienced than most people but who is as distant and invisible to the team as a satellite circling the Earth. Even though you now want responsibility, you won’t get it. Anyway, ignore that feeling. You didn’t save any money and now this is what you have to do. Suck it up. You still have that two day a week job in London.

But then you find out that you and your partner are going to have some trouble conceiving naturally. This was not in The Plan. I bought a baby shirt on sale and it’s past April. Oh well, we’ll take some vitamins and change the way we eat and make sure we exercise properly and look I’ve bought an ovulation app and there’s this fertility gel and did you know X, Y and Z had trouble and now they’re fine and if we just try enough it will be fine…then your boyfriend breaks up with you.

Oh. The Plan. The Plan has taken over everything and snuffed out the spontaneity and light. You’ve been ignoring the fact your boyfriend has feelings and you’ve been so focused on The Plan that you haven’t been listening or acknowledging anything he has to say that doesn’t support your version of the next few years. You’re still together but all of a sudden you’re in couples counselling so you can actually see each other as people. Blergh. This is why I never tried to look ahead.

So, that’s where things are at now. Trying to find a balance – a moderate path that lies somewhere between floating aimlessly through life and squandering my eggs and my place on the property ladder, and being so preoccupied with these things that I can’t enjoy my life and I secretly resent my friends for having these things when I do not. When does the easy bit of life happen?

I’ve realised that immediately before I came to London, I spent a month in Edinburgh then went on a two week Camino de Santiago through Portugal with my friend El. As I come to my final months in London, I have unconsciously and serendipitously planned the same ritual – going to Edinburgh for a couple of nights for the Fringe then going and doing a shortened version of the Camino in August with El again. I think it will be good to compare how I feel about myself and my life to last time I did these trips – my body and mind are stronger and in a lot of ways I feel I’m a much better person than I was back then. Although I have a new set of challenges and a new unknown facing me, I am once again in a state of flux and am wondering which of those figs I can actually have. This way of being is scary and uncertain with no guarantees, but somehow, I feel as though I have woken up and am relieved that life refuses to be predicted and controlled.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions… and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest,and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
– Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)

Self Portrait April 2015 – put through the How Old Robot website. London has aged me 56 years.